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Tokyo Boogie-Woogie: Japans Pop Era and Its Discontents

$35.00Hardcover

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Written By:

Hiromu Nagahara

Published By:

Harvard University Press, 04/10/2017

Product Details:

pages cm 9.00 H x 1.00 D x 6.00 W inches 1.08 lbs.

With the arrival of major international recording companies like Columbia and Victor in the 1920s, Japan’s pop music scene soon grew into a full-fledged culture industry that reached out to an avid consumer base through radio, cinema, and other media. The stream of songs that poured forth over the next four decades represented something new in the nation’s cultural landscape. Emerging during some of the most volatile decades in Japan’s history, popular songs struck a deep chord in Japanese society, gaining a devoted following but also galvanizing a vociferous band of opponents. A range of critics—intellectuals, journalists, government officials, self-appointed arbiters of taste—engaged in contentious debates on the merits of pop music. Many regarded it as a scandal, evidence of an increasingly debased and Americanized culture. For others, popular songs represented liberation from the oppressive political climate of the war years. A tale of competing cultural dynamics coming to a head....